Monday, 10 June 2013

So the mighty Anheuser Busch has been throwing their considerable weight around. As the Daily Fail reports here.

A couple of weeks ago they issued a cease and desist notice on South London micro Belleville Brewing Co. because according to the gargantuan beer company the name Belleville Brewing Co is too close to Belle-Vue Kriek, their sickly fruit beer and they are saying that the group of dads who named their brewery after their childerens primary school (the primary school that I went to, incidentally) are making money off the name.

Now this just strikes me as a bit 'Portman-group-esque'. For starters they are assuming that all their customers are stupid and illiterate, after all Thames Surfer seems quite far removed from Belle-Vue Kriek, or is that just me?

No common sense.

No confusion for beer drinkers that can read.

Secondly if, as a multi-billion pound business, you're really that afraid of a micro brewery making money off your beers name then why don't you just offer them a few million quid for the brewery? After all that's the new trend isn't it?

Now obviously Belleville Brewing Co doesn't have the resources to fight ABInBev and they will, by all accounts, be changing their name, which I think is a massive shame. It's just another instance of big business shitting all over a smaller one.